Our Blog - Villerouge-Termenès and Fontjoncouse, France

We did a really quick trip out this week, just out, 1 night stay, then back. Our wedding anniversary was in April and we had planned a trip out towards Narbonne to where there is a 3-Michelin-starred restaurant. With the COVID-19 lock-down, everything was closed and the trip was canceled. Once they reopened, we picked a date and remade the reservation. Interestingly enough, the restaurant is currently listed as the Best Fine Dining Restaurant in the World by TripAdvisor. More on the restaurant later.

We headed East and stopped at the village of Villerouge-Termenès. It isn't listed as a Plus Beau Village, but it had a nice castle and it was in the right direction. Here is a nice model of the castle and village.

The castle and village belonged to the archbishops of Narbonne from 1100 until the French Revolution. As with most religious properties, it was taken by the state, divided up, and shared by a number of private owners until the end of the 20th century. The citadel was built in the 13th century and played an important role during the Albigenses crusade. The village is deep in Cathar country, and there is quite a history around the Cathars in Southern France. In this case, it is the story of Guillaume Bélibaste and his Cathar companion, Philippe d'Alairac. The last Cathar "Perfect", Guillaume Bélibaste, was burned alive here in 1321.

The castle is what you think of as a castle ... 4 round towers, crenellations, and a fortified gate.

Inside, it has been renovated back to more of the original configuration. There are some 20th century frescoes based on real medieval examples, but there is also one original fresco from the 14th century with Saint Christopher. It is really hard to make out, but it shows Saint Christopher carrying the child Jesus across a river on his shoulders. In the red part of the fresco, a light-colored semicircle dotted with narrow strips represents the halo of Saint Christopher. His bearded face, the legs of Christ whose knees are emphasized with a stroke of black, one of his feet resting on the right shoulder of the saint, who holds his staff in his right hand. Don't worry if you don't really see it ... neither did I.

There is an audioguide that is included in the entrance fee that walks you through a few rooms and tells the story of Guillaume Bélibaste. When he was a young man (about 25), he got into a fight and killed a shepherd from this village. He was found guilty but fled, abandoning his wife, child, and property. To redeem himself, he goes to the Cathars and becomes a "perfect" (so, he was not a cleric, but had become very educated in the teachings and aided the ordinary members in the belief and practice of the religion). He is captured but escapes from prison and ends up in Catalonia (NE Spain). He ends up being betrayed and is recaptured. He was returned to Villerouge-Termenès and is burned alive in the courtyard of the castle.

From there, we headed to the Gorges du Gouleyrous that someone had mentioned to us before. We thought it would be a quiet little space with great views. Well .. the second part was correct ... but it was packed with people. Seems that it is a swimming area for local families in the summer. We couldn't get anywhere close to the water and even trying to walk further into the gorge wasn't possible. A couple pictures and we headed out.

Now, the main reason for the trip ... Gilles Goujon's three-Michelin-starred restaurant, L'Auberge du Vieux Puits. There is a very interesting story on this restaurant. The mayor of the town of Fontjoncouse decided that the village could only survive by creating a restaurant, which he did by transforming an old sheep pen. Unfortunately, every hotel/restaurant that came in ended up filing for bankruptcy. In 1992, the mayor contacted Gilles Goujon and his wife by telephone to offer them the possibility of taking over. They visited and were enchanted by the place and they moved there and took over. After a bit of work to restore it, they opened. However, several years went by and the restaurant is still practically deserted. His peers convinced Goujon to enter the MOF (Meilleur Ouvrier de France) competition which he won in 1996. In 1997, his restaurant earned the first Michelin star and the restaurant took off! The second star came in 2001 and the 3rd in 2010. In 2015, it was ranked 9th of the 1000 best restaurants in the world by "The List" and then in 2020, the TripAdvisor "best restaurant in the world" ranking on the basis of the opinions left by customers. The hotel there opened in 2001.

Here you can see the Église Sainte-Léocadie and the tiny piece left from an old castle up on the top of the hill. The building with the light blue shutters (that are closed) is actually the building that our hotel room was in. We stayed in the "La Maison des Chefs", which is a separate building a couple minutes walk from the restaurant and main part of the hotel. Each room is dedicated to a chef and, by coincidence, we got the room of Joël Robuchon (we've been to a couple of his restaurants!).

The wooden napkin holder has the logo of the restaurant, and you will see this again! Another interesting thing on the table is what looks like a book, but in fact, opens out to be a light for the table (we were outside). We started the journey with the house cocktail, and an interesting display of small bites as a starter. Each was quite small but had a little explosion of flavor.

Next came an amuse-bouche with a very lightly poached oyster in its' shell on an interesting plate. Here came a little bit of theater .... you can see the small ball that looks like glass, which is actually a little sphere of blown sugar containing a scent of smoked oyster. To release the aroma, you break the little sphere with a small hammer provided. The oyster itself was served simply with chives and a little sauce underneath.

We had ordered the "Air de fêtes en Corbières" menu, which is a tasting of 4 dishes of the chefs choosing, cheese from the cheese cart, and desserts. The only thing that we said was that I did *NOT* eat lamb, which was the meat-course on the other available fixed price menu. The appetizer was lobster carpaccio, served with crystallized squash blossoms, served on top of overlapping razor-thin slices of zucchini. There was also a lobster mousse and a little edible purple flower.

Next is one of his "signature dishes", and features an egg from a nearby village (the Carrus farm). This starts looking like a hard-boiled egg on a "nest" but it it is definitely NOT! They have you break it open with your fork to "see if it is good" .. but as you break it open, the black interior oozes out. The yolk has been removed and in its place was a black truffle cream/juice. The server then spoons on a truffle sabayon and shaves two types of truffle on top: a local summer truffle and then black Tasmanian truffles. It is served with a truffle brioche and a dazzlingly intense mushroom cappuccino on the side.

The fish course was a red mullet with a seafood cream in a spoon that is hanging on the top of the bowl. The server then pours a seafood broth onto the spoon, releasing the cream into the main part of the dish.

Since I didn't eat lamb, we had beef which was brought out a little earlier on a slab of wood to show us, before heading back to the kitchen to rest before slicing. They then brought it out, slicing a stuffed swiss chard package to finish the plate.

The cheese cart was pretty elaborate and was wheeled around to each table, covering and uncovering the cheese with the netting at each table. We could choose whatever we wanted, but by then I was fairly full! I opted for 3 types of cow cheese (I just said I prefer cow, and so then he selected the 3) and Tom went with goat cheeses. I had gotten a cherry confiture with mine but Tom opted for Rosemary honey, which they drew into the same logo shape that we had seen on the napkin ring.

Dessert was another little piece of theater. A lemon, right? No! Blown sugar in the shape of a lemon, including the little bulge at the end (I still have no idea how he did this), with some dots of cream. When you crack it open, it is filled with a citrus bergamot and Japanese kumquat sorbet, lemon thyme cream, and little pieces of crispy meringue.

A little tray of petit-fours and some espresso and the evening was complete.